Students from across Southcoast march for MLK Day of Service

Monday

Jan 20, 2014 at 9:39 PMJan 20, 2014 at 9:48 PM

SIMÓN RIOS

NEW BEDFORD – From the triple deckers of South End New Bedford to the suburbs of Marion, kids from across SouthCoast gathered Monday to honor the legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. through community service.

“With the adults it's too late. With the youth we know that they're more impressionable. They don't have the influence of all the negativity,” said Sterling Lopes, a student at YouthBuild New Bedford leading a table filled with kids from Marion, Fairhaven and New Bedford.

“Our youth is our future, so in order for us to change our future we have to change our youth.”

It was the first annual MLK New Bedford Children's March. More than 200 kids congregated at Roosevelt Middle School for a teach-in Monday morning, before marching to GiftsToGive, where they spent the rest of the day volunteering.

Passing a skein of yarn across the table, each student introduced themselves and announced what career they aspired to work in, then passed the yarn back across the table.

“We just demonstrated how we're all connected,” Lopes said. “and if one person was to go without food, or one person was to not go to school or get arrested, how it would affect our whole community.”

The event was organized by an array of organizations, including YouthBuild New Bedford, GiftsToGive and SouthCoast Serves. GiftsToGive volunteer Leanne Neves recited King's “I have a dream” speech with impassioned delivery at the teach-in.

YouthBuild's Erik Andrade spoke of New Bedford as an important city in America's civil rights history, with ties to Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman, as well as homegrown liberation figures.

“Rodney French ... the third mayor of New Bedford, allowed slaves to take refuge in his house,” Andrade said. “This is the city (of) Paul Cuffe, an African and Native American, who established the first free, integrated school in America ... in Westport, Massachusetts.

“It is fitting that in this community we're celebrating the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement. And we're pushing it forward.”

The students were shown a documentary depicting the role of youth in Birmingham, Ala., in the period leading up to the end of segregation. The film depicted white men brutally repressing the protesters with German shepherds and fire hoses but the young people upholding their commitment to non-violence.

GiftsToGive CEO Jim Stevens told the story of being arrested in Birmingham at the age of 14, when he took a Greyhound bus to the epicenter of the civil rights struggle. Five decades later, Stevens said he is embarrassed for the legacy of his generation.

“I am so sorry about the condition of the world we're leaving behind,” he said. “And these problems — global warming, terrorism, child poverty, half the kids of New Bedford not graduating high school — these problems you've got to fix.”

Marquis Cruz, 19, a graduate of YouthBuild, spoke during the teach-in.“In order for us to come together as one, we must start with love,” Cruz said. “It needs to start from the heart, not from the mind.”

Cruz emphasized the value of good choices — most important the one between a life of crime and a life as a productive member of society.“As I got older I soon came to realize that I'd been in multiple situations where I almost died in the streets, and I also ended up in jail,” Cruz said. “Now is the time to figure out what you want to do. Plan your future. Think big.”